Obama Summons G.O.P. and Democratic Leaders for Deficit Reduction Talks
By MARK LANDLER and CARL HULSE
NYT
WASHINGTON — President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressional Republicans on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cutting deal, pledging to put popular entitlement programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescence to some higher taxes.
Mr. Obama, who met secretly with Speaker John A. Boehner at the White House on Sunday to try to advance the talks, called House and Senate leaders from both parties to the White House for further negotiations on Thursday. And he rejected talk of an interim deal that would get the government past a looming deadline on raising the federal debt limit without settling some of the longer-term issues contributing to the government’s fiscal imbalances.
“We’ve got a unique opportunity to do something big, to tackle our deficit in a way that forces our government to live within its means,” he said in an appearance in the White House briefing room, casting himself as much an honest broker as a partisan participant in the talks. “This will require both parties to get out of our comfort zones, and both parties to agree on real compromise.”
Mr. Obama’s previously undisclosed Sunday meeting with Mr. Boehner suggests that the talks are entering a critical phase. There were also intense staff-level negotiations between the White House and Congress over the details of a multi-trillion-dollar package of spending cuts that could clear the way for a vote to raise the debt ceiling, constrain the growth of government and radically reshape the role of government in American society.
The two sides remain in a deadlock over the president’s insistence that the package contain tax increases as well as spending cuts. While Mr. Obama did not retreat from that demand Tuesday, he coupled it with a pledge to take on spending in “entitlement programs,” a promise likely to unsettle many Democrats.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressional Republicans on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cutting deal, pledging to put popular entitlement programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescence to some higher taxes.
Mr. Obama, who met secretly with Speaker John A. Boehner at the White House on Sunday to try to advance the talks, called House and Senate leaders from both parties to the White House for further negotiations on Thursday. And he rejected talk of an interim deal that would get the government past a looming deadline on raising the federal debt limit without settling some of the longer-term issues contributing to the government’s fiscal imbalances.
“We’ve got a unique opportunity to do something big, to tackle our deficit in a way that forces our government to live within its means,” he said in an appearance in the White House briefing room, casting himself as much an honest broker as a partisan participant in the talks. “This will require both parties to get out of our comfort zones, and both parties to agree on real compromise.”
Mr. Obama’s previously undisclosed Sunday meeting with Mr. Boehner suggests that the talks are entering a critical phase. There were also intense staff-level negotiations between the White House and Congress over the details of a multi-trillion-dollar package of spending cuts that could clear the way for a vote to raise the debt ceiling, constrain the growth of government and radically reshape the role of government in American society.
The two sides remain in a deadlock over the president’s insistence that the package contain tax increases as well as spending cuts. While Mr. Obama did not retreat from that demand Tuesday, he coupled it with a pledge to take on spending in “entitlement programs,” a promise likely to unsettle many Democrats.
(More here.)
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